Just before an interview with Oprah Winfrey where he was expected to come clean on doping, Lance Armstrong apologized Monday to the staff of the Livestrong charity he founded, choking up and saying, "I'm sorry." A person who was at the meeting said the cyclist did not directly confess to doping, but he apologized for letting the staff down and putting Livestrong at risk, and he said he would try to restore the foundation's reputation. After the meeting, Armstrong and his advisers gathered at a downtown Austin hotel for the interview. A person with knowledge of the situation said Armstrong would make a limited confession to Winfrey about his role as the head of a long-running scheme to dominate the Tour de France with the aid of performance-enhancing drugs. The interview will be broadcast Thursday.

Despite French intervention against them, Islamist rebels in Mali overran a strategic military camp Monday, bringing them much closer to the capital, Bamako. The al-Qaida-linked extremists cut off the road leading to the garrison town of Diabaly early Monday, and by afternoon they had captured the town and its military base, located about 100 miles north of Segou. The French Embassy in Bamako ordered the immediate evacuation of about 60 French nationals from Segou. The rebels are now only 250 miles from Bamako, whereas they were previously 420 miles away in Konna. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Monday that the United States is providing intelligence support to the French in Mali and could step up its logistical support. "We have a responsibility to make sure that al-Qaida doesn't establish a base of operations in northern Africa," Panetta said.

President Barack Obama warned congressional Republicans that he will not let them use the nation's debt limit to negotiate spending cuts, listing the catastrophic results that could come from defaulting on the nation's debt. Social Security benefits and veterans' checks would be delayed, our troops would not get paid, and it could "blow up the economy," he said. "They will not collect a ransom in exchange for not crashing the economy," he said at the final news conference of his first term. "The full faith and credit of the United States of America is not a bargaining chip. And they better decide quickly because time is running short." Obama also said he would unveil new proposals to curb gun violence next week, conceding that lawmakers may not approve everything he seeks.

A Southern California boy who was 10 when he shot his white supremacist father to death was found guilty of second-degree murder Monday by a judge who rejected arguments that he didn't know right from wrong. "This was not a complex killing," said Riverside Superior Court Judge Jean Leonard, who heard the case without a jury. "He thought about the idea and shot his father." Leonard noted that the boy waited until his father, National Socialist Movement regional leader Jeff Hall, fell asleep on the couch, then he took a .357 Magnum and shot him in the head. The boy's stepmother told police that Hall had hit, kicked and yelled at his son for being too loud or getting in the way. Defense attorney Matthew Hardy said that because of the abuse the boy had learned it was acceptable to kill people who were a threat. Prosecutors maintained Hall's white supremacist beliefs had nothing to do with the crime. The boy, who was not identified, is now 12 years old and could be jailed until he is 23.

Jodie Foster came out as somewhat verbose at the Golden Globes on Sunday, accepting a lifetime achievement award with a speech that bordered on a rant and left some people confused about what she had said. Though Foster is widely thought to be a lesbian, she pretended that she was going to acknowledge her sexual orientation with a lengthy tease: "While I'm here being all confessional, I just have the sudden urge to say something I've never been able to air in public. A declaration that I'm a little nervous about. ... But uh, you know, I'm just going to put it out there. Loud and proud. I'm going to need your support. I am -- single!" Then she said, "I already did my coming out about a thousand years ago, back in the stone age. ... But now, apparently I'm told, that every celebrity is expected to honor the details of their private life with a press conference, a fragrance and a prime-time reality show." Foster made an appeal for privacy, saying she has been in the public eye since the age of 3, but "I am not Honey Boo Boo Child." Parts of Foster's remarks were interpreted to mean she was retiring from showbiz, but she hastened to assure reporters afterward that she wasn't. The AP called Foster's speech "long, breathless and rambling," while Salon called it "awkward and at times angry and brave and strange."

The Wire, a summary of top national and world news stories from the Associated Press and other wire services, moves weekdays. Contact Karl Kahler at 408-920-5023; follow him at twitter.com/karl_kahler.